THE FLOUERS O EDINBURGH. To 17 October.
Pitlochry.
THE FLOUERS O' EDINBURGH
by Robert McLellan.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 17 October 2007.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 26 Sept 2pm.
Audio-described: enquire when booking.
Runs 3hr Two intervals.
TICKETS: 01796 484626.
www.pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 August.
Fine marking of the McLellan centenary.
When Carol Ann Crawford's magisterial ladyship, dispossessed of her Highland castle in the political fallout of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, sits in her Edinburgh Old Town apartment lamenting the fall-off of writing in Scots, saying maybe one day someone will take it up again, Crawford's eyes seem to turn to the audience. It may be imagination, but this is certainly a 'nudge-nudge' moment.
For playwright Rober McLellan spent several decades of the 20th century giving Scots a new literary voice. It's not always appreciated. A few Pitlochry visitors grumbled they should have been warned this play comes in an unfamiliar language. Yet Scots overlaps mostly with English and Richard Baron's finely-spoken, lum-reeking, gie it all ye hae production makes overall sense of everything, even if a few specifics pass you by.
Even more than in his historical thriller Jamie the Saxt (at London's Finborough till 1 September and in a different production at Arran's McLellan Festival for a few days in September), McLellan makes the English language appear a strangulated, semi-comprehensible tongue. Here, it's spoken by Anglicised Scotsmen back from London with metropolitan ways, and seems the future for several Edinburgh folk who take secret lessons. The fashion's set by the foppish Gilchrist, whose artificial posturing matches a version of English that sounds ridiculous either side the Border.
McLellan's outer acts are clear enough; the central one involving a political contest and an Indianised Scot, is less penetrable. But overall, there are plenty of happy coincidences and neat comic devices in a play that may not transcend the decades since its 1948 premiere to seem rivetingly relevant, but which shows sturdy dramatic qualities and presents a neat variety of clerics, officers and servants.
Always, the key value is Scottishness. From England come threats of Highland Clearances and industrialisation. Even the sympathetic English officer turns out unreliable, while a true Scotsman loyally collects the rents voluntarily paid by tenants to their traditional laird. And Martyn James' servant, as unruly as the collection of mop-heads he wears on his heid, is a genius with the oven in a performance capturing the sense of a happy heirarchy that finds expression in its own fine tongue.
Jock Carmichael: Martyn James.
Kate Mair: Suzanne Donaldson
Girzie Carmichael: Carol Ann Crawford.
Jeanie/Caddy: Elizabeth Nestor.
Lord Stanebyres: Crawford Logan
Charles Gilchrist: Grant O'Rourke
Rev Daniel Dowie: Alan Steele
John Douglas: David Horne
Rev Alexander Lindsay: Callum O'Neill
Captain Sidney Simkin: Gavin Kean
Bell Baxter: Jacqueline Dutoit
Susie: Susan Coyle
Baillie Willian Gleg/Caddy: Greg Powrie
Thomas Auchterleckie: Rory Murray
Siva/Caddy: Steven Rae
General von Carmichael: Robin Harvey Edwards
Director: Richard Baron
Designer/Costume: Ken Harrison
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Sound: Ronnie McConnell
Scots language adviser: Carol Ann Crawford
2007-08-24 10:36:06